Yearly Archives: 2000

New York’s Economy, Through Another Lens

June 27, 2000. A letter to the editor of the New York Times, by James Parrott: Re ''Jobs Data for 1999 Paint a Rosier Picture for Upstate New York'' (news article, March 2): It may be a little premature for Gov. George E. Pataki to herald the turnaround of the upstate economy. At least 40 percent of the private job gain last year occurred in industries like retail and social services, where the average wages are 40 percent below the average for all workers in [...]

2020-11-13T14:56:22-05:00June 27th, 2000|Economic Trends & Policy, Letters|
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New York’s Minimum Wage Opportunity

June 24, 2000. The New York State Senate recessed on  June 23rd without acting on the proposal to increase the minimum wage to $6.75 per hour on January 1, 2001.  This legislation is sponsored by 16 of the 36 members of the  Senate's Republican Majority Conference.  Whether the Senate reconvenes before or after Election Day, this is an issue that it will not be able to ignore.  Tom Michl and Trudi Renwick review the erosion of the purchasing power of the minimum wage over the [...]

2020-11-13T14:58:56-05:00June 24th, 2000|Economic Trends & Policy, Labor Market & Workforce, Letters|
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State lawmakers should boost minimum wage

June 22, 2000. A letter to the editor by Trudi Renwick and Tom Michl. Published in the Albany Times Union. On Monday the Times Union reported the effort to increase the state minimum wage to $6.75 per hour "apparently died in the Senate.'' The Senate has returned to Albany this week and should make sure this opportunity to give low-income working New Yorkers a much-needed raise doesn't really die. In fact, the purchasing power (in current dollars) of the minimum wage has fallen from approximately [...]

2020-11-13T14:58:56-05:00June 22nd, 2000|Economic Trends & Policy, Labor Market & Workforce, Letters|
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Hold Adelphia responsible if promises don’t pan out

June 15, 2000.  A call for accountability from Buffalo News columnist Rod Watson. OK, let's make a deal. You give me mucho, mucho bucks  and I'll give you . . . what? A promise? Sound good? Do you know of any business that does business like  that? No, only government does business like that. So welcome to the  Adelphia Communications waterfront project. New York State already has tossed $75 million of public money  into the pot, $50 million of it new dollars, to help get [...]

2020-11-13T14:56:22-05:00June 15th, 2000|Blog, Economic Trends & Policy|
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Briefing on How Federal Spending Priorities Affect New York State

June 2, 2000. Remarks by Ed Bloch, Director, The Interfaith Alliance of New York State at The Impact of Federal Spending Priorities on New York State, an educational briefing: As the technological capability to achieve weapons of mass destruction (and, in fact, incineration of the planet) continue to evolve, we are confronted with a fundamental ethical question. Where does true security lie and where shall we spend our treasure to achieve it??? Compelling evidence demonstrates that technology cannot provide dependable security. We will find security [...]

2012-03-15T20:08:53-04:00June 2nd, 2000|Blog|
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The Impact of Federal Spending Priorities on New York State: An Educational Briefing

June 2, 2000. New York State receives $3.9 billion less per year from the federal government in key budget areas than it did in 1980. Meanwhile, while military spending grew by $10.7 billion. Representatives of Statewide Youth Advocacy, the Interfaith Alliance of New York State and the Fiscal Policy Institute joined Greg Speeter and Pam Schwartz of the National Priorities Project in presenting an educational briefing today on how federal spending priorities impact New Yorkers. Press release: A new report, "New York 2000: Critical Needs, [...]

2012-03-15T20:12:43-04:00June 2nd, 2000|Blog, Tax & Budget|
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An Agenda for a Better New York: Modernizing New York’s Unemployment Insurance System

June 2000. A new report by Jennifer McCormick and Trudi Renwick. Executive summary below; also see full report. On the last day of the 1998 Legislative Session, a significant Unemployment Insurance (UI) reform bill was passed by both houses of the legislature and later signed into law by Governor Pataki. This wide-ranging bill addressed many aspects of the UI program: employer tax rates, the taxable wage base, the maximum benefit amount, seasonal employers and individual eligibility. A more limited set of reforms, some of which [...]

2020-11-13T15:15:22-05:00June 1st, 2000|Reports, Briefs and Presentations, Social Policy|
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Sponsors and speakers to call for systematic reform of New York’s $2.6 billion Corporate Welfare program

Forum on Corporate Welfare and Corporate Accountability to be held in Troy at 7 pm on Wednesday, May 3, 2000. For more information, contact Mark Dunlea at 518-434-7371 or Frank Mauro at 518-786-3156. The Fair Budget Campaign will be conducting a forum on Corporate Welfare and Accountability on Wednesday, May 3rd at 7:00 PM at the First United Presbyterian Church, 1915 5th Avenue, Troy (2 blocks east of the Uncle Sam Atrium). The event is co-sponsored by Troy Area United Ministries. The forum will feature [...]

2020-11-13T15:11:25-05:00May 3rd, 2000|Letters, Social Policy|
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Street Addict

The city is less dependent on the stock market than in '87, right? Wrong. Almost 20 percent of the city's income is made on Wall Street -- which could mean catastrophe in a crash. BY DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK When the long-running bull market took a week off in the middle of April, many New Yorkers couldn't help indulging in a little schadenfreude. After all, the Internal Revenue Service reports that 75 percent of the capital gains earned during the recent boom accrued to just the [...]

2011-07-13T19:28:30-04:00May 1st, 2000|Letters, Social Policy|
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Robin Hood in reverse

May 1, 2000. An editorial in the Albany Times-Union: New York state is taking federal welfare money to pay for middle-class subsidies It's been a while since a welfare scandal made headlines. Something like a welfare mother driving a Cadillac or someone collecting checks under several different names used to make for such easy political points. All that stopped, ostensibly, when President Clinton and Congress made good on their determination to end welfare as we once knew it. Misuse of welfare funds is now as [...]

2020-11-13T15:11:25-05:00May 1st, 2000|Blog, Social Policy|
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Federal Welfare Windfall Frees New York Money for Other Uses

April 23, 2000. Raymond Hernandez reporting for the New York Times quotes FPI's Frank Mauro. In the four years since the overhaul of the nation's welfare laws, New York has taken at least $1 billion given to it by the federal government for new antipoverty programs and used it instead to indirectly finance huge tax cuts and other programs that appeal to middle-class voters, according to government and private estimates. The budgetary switch has been employed by other states, prompting Congress to open an investigation [...]

2020-11-13T15:12:45-05:00April 23rd, 2000|Blog, Social Policy|
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Inside the New State Budget: A Welfare Slush Fund

April 17, 2000. An update from City Limits Weekly (No. 224), New York's urban affairs news magazine. Reported by Annia Ciezadlo. Add a new one to the list of behavioral changes wrought by welfare reform: the TANF land grab. Since the old welfare program was replaced with the more flexible Temporary Assistance to Needy Families block grant in 1997, and since declining welfare rolls have left a hefty surplus of unspent funds, states have been using this cash much more creatively-including using the money to [...]

2020-11-13T15:12:45-05:00April 17th, 2000|Blog, Social Policy|
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Catholic Conference opposes TANF ‘raid’

April 12, 2000. A story by Jamie D. Gilkey in the Troy Record. In the midst of efforts to reach a final deal on the state budget, opposition grew Tuesday to a proposal that would use more than $100 million originally intended to aid poor families to supplement the wages of health care workers. Among the new critics of the plan is the New York State Catholic Conference, which The Record has learned sent a letter to all state legislators opposing the state Senate backed [...]

2020-11-13T15:12:45-05:00April 12th, 2000|Blog, Social Policy|
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Critics call plan ‘raid’

April 11, 2000. A story by Jamie D. Gilkey in the Troy Record. FPI's Frank Mauro is quoted. With state budget negotiations making rapid headway towards a final agreement, a proposal that initially would have diverted $165 million from a fund meant to help welfare recipients is running into resistance from a scattered group of health care and community activists, according to information obtained by The Record. Sources  say that negotiators for the state Senate presented a scaled-down version of the plan during an initial [...]

2020-11-13T15:12:45-05:00April 11th, 2000|Blog, Social Policy|
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Head of Congressional welfare reform panel tells all 50 Governors it’s essential that states use their TANF resources and use them wisely

Early in 1999, U.S. Representative Nancy L. Johnson (R-CT), chair of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources, which has jurisdiction over TANF, sent a letter to the governors of all 50 states urging them to spend more of their TANF funds or risk having Congress take some portion back. This warning was made more concrete by several congressional attempts later in 1999 to rescind some unspent TANF funds. Fortunately, from the perspective of the states and from the perspective of those who [...]

2020-11-13T15:12:45-05:00April 7th, 2000|Reports, Briefs and Presentations, Social Policy|
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